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Today’s Open Thread is brought to you by guestblogger and friend of The Zoo, SpiritKat.

The GOP is all agog at Romney’s choice for vice president. The way they are fawning over him and touting his policies and stances, one would think that Paul Ryan was the Presidential candidate instead of Romney. This sudden leap of enthusiasm baffled me. After all, the Vice-President is really not much more than a figurehead, so what’s the big deal? But then I was struck by a thought: perhaps Romney’s slip of the tongue was not such a slip at all…

Without knowing it, Romney may well have been channeling a secret plot of the GOP. It has been clear from the start that Romney is not exactly the GOP’s ideal pick for President. His religion, his etch-a-sketch waffling on issues, and most especially his failure to lean far enough to the right have not exactly endeared him to the either the GOP or prospective voters. The only thing Romney has really had going for him is his wealth. Of course, the choices of acceptable candidates were pretty slim, judging by the debates, so I suspect Romney really got the pick purely by default.

Then there are gas prices. Have you noticed that the closer Romney got to being the top front runner, the more gas prices went down? Now that Romney has chosen the GOP’s golden boy, we’ve suddenly had a fire in a California refinery and gas prices are once again on the rise. Coincidence? Or do I smell snake oil burning?

So, let’s get back to Romney’s slip of the tongue. Perhaps the GOP can have its cake and eat it, too? Let us suppose that the Romney/Ryan ticket succeeds in winning the election (most likely by buying the election or by a die-bold–or is that the same thing?). Now, suppose President-elect Romney is assassinated on the eve of his inauguration (which, of course, would be blamed on terrorists, so the fear factor is up and running again). Voila! The GOP’s golden boy steps in and is sworn in as the President of the United States. Yes, now the GOP’s excitement over that slip of the tongue makes a whole lot more sense.

THIS IS OUR OPEN THREAD. SLIPS OF THE TONGUE ALLOWED. SLIPPING THE TONGUE…IT DEPENDS…;)

“Paul Ryan, who teamed with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip, with his iPod full of heavy metal and cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.”

Spiritkat – nice work….. I think I saw that movie…. ;). They don’t need to off Rmoney though….. he has no conviction about anything. And Richmond refinery? That’s a dangerous place, old, not so well run – a fire is not surprising. In general gas price manipulation for elections is a popular and unproven theory – it always looks like its being manipulated, except when it isn’t.

But your basic thesis that Ryan was pushed onto Rmoney? Believable. Funny how VP choices are supposed to shore up a weakness with the main candidate, Biden for Obamla’s foreign policy cred, Palin for McCain’s young/women problem. What does Ryan do for Rmoney? Pander to the bronwshirts in his own party – there is his real weakness.

Dare to imagine 50,000 national Republican delegates stranded in downtown Tampa without power or water in the aftermath of a hurricane strike. Go on, dare, because forecasters now say it really could happen

OK… I have a thought rambling in my head, so allow me a minute to get it out.

54% of rape is unreported. 32,000 pregnancies result from rape per year. Presumably, a portion of the women who are raped are also on birth control which might prevent a bad situation of being raped into a worse situation of carrying an unwanted pregnancy.

Republicans also want to get rid of birth control for women. If they succeed, won’t the number of unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape also go up? Thus resulting in more abortions that the Republicans don’t want women to have?

Why don’t the Republicans focus more on preventing rape and/or increasing the use of birth control for all women so that unintended pregnancies are not a problem?

Catch-22. Logically, those who are the most against abortion should be in favor of measures to prevent pregnancies. An acquaintance of mine was babbling about abortion so I said; “then you must think it would be a good idea to put a free condom dispenser in every public bathroom in the country especially in schools”. That got a resounding “NO” which was as devoid of logic as his original dismay over abortion.

Dont Baptise Me Bro at 1:46 PM August 21, 2012
It doesnt need to be in there, if it was truly rape a woman cant get pregnant, if she is pregnant then she really wanted it and probably led the rapist on or decided after the fact, after she climaxed, that she shouldn’t have done it

To the topic at hand, I do see it is odd that the refinery burned when it did. Although, the rich could affect the price of oil in the speculation market without having to result to arson, so maybe it’s just a coincidence.

In terms of a plot to get rid of Romney to make Ryan the president, it would almost seem that Romney would have to be in on it.

What I would see as more likely (assuming the Republicans look beyond 5 minutes into the future on any issue) is grooming a younger, intelligent, but still ultra-hard-core extremist. He’s got the extreme nature of any of the crazies on the national stage, but he’s bright, and articulate and appears to be a saavy politician. Or as one comedian put it the other day; he’s an English-speaking version of Sarah Palin.

Refineries are dangerous places, some more than others (mainly due to age and maintenance/safety policies). Of the ones I went to (lost count actually), Richmond was one I would have said “Oh yeah, anytime.” Its a coincidence.

I love conspiracies. It is so much fun playing what if and building plot lines. With Willard and Ayn the possibilities are fascinating. SpiritKat’s assassination idea is particularly fraught with them. The Republicans are in need of a new ‘shock & awe’ incident to project their agenda forward. The old memes are getting stale. Taking out Willard, with a nice little LHO putz with left connections would be just the ticket. It gets rid of the possible embarrassment of having a Mormon in the White House, slides their little psycho buddy into power and opens the door for the persecution of the damned libruls.

I would rank it up there with Mooslims attacking with box cutters as Pearl Harbor moment. We are probably talking martial law territory here.

Razib Kahn breaks down public opinion on abortion and rape. Note that no demographic group, not even biblical literalists or the extremely conservative, breaks fifty percent in denying abortion to rape victims:

That’s the truth whatever Romney now wants to say. 150 Republican congressman voted for a bill that would allow abortions only for “forcible rape”, as if there were some other kind.

Here’s what Romney said about pro-life figure John C Willke in 2007: “I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country.” Someone should ask Mitt: is he still proud that his party platform is basing its social policy on the views of a man who thinks “statutory rape can be consensual”?

Ann Romney may not make primetime during next week’s Republican National Convention.

The three major television networks — NBC, ABC, and CBS — are not airing primetime coverage of the RNC on Monday, the opening night of the convention and the night that Ann Romney has been scheduled to deliver the keynote address. So in order to get Mitt’s wife onto television, the campaign may have to scramble and reschedule her speech.

CNN, which will cover the speech, first reported earlier this week that Ann Romney is expected to headline the kick-off. The three networks all confirmed to POLITICO today that they would not be airing primetime coverage of the RNC on Monday.

The Romney campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

– – Gosh, and I was hoping for more of her condescendingly smug snarkiness toward 99%ers.

So Ann Rmoney is giving the KEYNOTE? Can you say ‘Narcism’?
What’s she going to talk about? The incredible hardships of dressage?
Thank Jeebus for internet shopping so she doesn’t have to mingle with the little people?

There is a whole continent of Africa that might disagree. Ironically, somehow the false rumor spread that if a man with AIDS in Africa had sex with a virgin, then they would be cured. Guess what that did to the “forcible” rape level?

How is it that people don’t know much about biology and sexuality in this day and age?

That’s the really maddening part. AIDS could have come to this country via a returning Harvard student, Kennedy, wildlife photographer, or even a missionary. It’s just chance that it first took hold in the gay population. And how many heterosexual white people, including children, died because it was first billed as a “gay plague”?

In one sense he is… he was simply reciting the talking points. As many have pointed out, other righties have said the same thing. So he must wonder why he’s getting singled out for sticking to the talking points.

But, I’m glad he is. Too long the media and politicians have looked the other way on this extremism. Maybe this will reel it in a bit.

A religion can define marriage however it wishes. The problem is that our legal system and government agencies favor a particular type of marriage and grant it special status. Maybe if we removed the special privileges for “traditional” marriage we could achieve equality that way?

Yes. he was calling in from home. He had something burst in his intestines or something. He has another surgery scheduled for Friday, but intends to be back on Monday. He’s doing an “anything goes” day.

I don’t understand why they wait so late to announce it. I had ’em with my cable guide and the marathon of last season’s shows that day to lead into the new one. If you can get BBC One to work at TVPC, you can watch it about lunchtime. 😀

Anyone who blathers about “American exceptionalism” should be deeply embarrassed by stories like this. The “third world” is beating us at implementing greener energy solutions and that should be considered unacceptable by all Americans.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that request came from the RNC, the Rmoney campaign, and the conservative CEOs of the “librul media” themselves. I recall a story about another An(toinette) addressing a crowd. Let’s just say it didn’t go over well.

Yeah…. I was quite young and didn’t know what it was at first… the guy asked me if I could touch myself. I have to admit, I was pretty clueless. Had no idea WHERE he wanted to imagine me touching myself.

I just discovered that if you click [Ed: I left that word out] on the time stamp in the lower left-hand corner, it takes you [Ed: left that one out, too] to a page showing replies and the number of retweets and favorites it got. That applies to ANY tweet you see posted here. Cool.

And it’s up to 44 and 7 now. Many of the people retweeting it, or copying it with an RT in front of it, are not current followers of mine, but of the people who retweeted it. Then they retweet it to their followers, and more and more people see it.

That’s the magic of the Twitter. And it’s up to 47 and 7. (I have been typing this with one hand, while I hold my dinner in the other.)

On Thursday, we’ll visit Columbia, Missouri, where we’ll deliver a mountain of letters to Rep. Todd Akin. A few days ago, he said that only some rapes are “legitimate” — and that “legitimate rape” almost never leads to pregnancy. The Women are Watching bus tour is going to let him know exactly what we think of his ignorant and inflammatory comments.

I’m starting to think there’s something in the water, if not a change in philosophy, at CNN. This time it was Wolfie slapping down John Sununu’s talking points. If this becomes a continuing trend I will feel a lot better about the upcoming election. CNN is considered a legitimate news source by many independent and undecided voters.